On one hand, we're going to perform wonders, on the other you say half are hopeless.

If part two is right, then getting anything is a wonder, all right.

At least stop calling it No Child Left Behind. The plan is to leave many behind.

No, the plan is to offer them a chance. They won't be left behind, they'll choose to fail.

Isn't it interesting how the education establishment hates being measured against anything?

They should have supported abolishing the Dept. of Education 10 years ago. Too bad.

Then they already are. Why do you blame the schools?

I don't blame public schools for the kids who fail, but for retarding the education of the ones who want to learn. I just want the kids who can do better to have the opportunity to do better. The ineducable majority will be with us always.

Another aspect is the oversubscription to higher education.

Not everyone can, or should, go to college, but almost everyone could benefit from some job training.

Even some folks who excel in college might as well skip it, for all the good it'll do their careers... Many years ago, I used to work at a Taco Bell with one guy who had a PhD in philosophy, and another guy who had a Bachelor's degree in Russian History.

Swell guys, but not underemployed, if one considers only their preparation, and not their potential.

As much as I hate to parrott Rush Limbaugh, he's made one point that I find unanswerable. We provide at least thirteen years of public education, and then we're told we need to provide job training. One of those must be surplusage.

First, job training has never been the goal of the common schools.

Second, a reasonably functioning common school -- as most are -- does produce trainees who are well prepared to get specific job instruction.

The Dept. of Labor says there are about 60,000 job types in this country (up from 29,000 when I was in school).

Obviously, common schools cannot train for each one.

To become a Polynesian or Micronesian navigator, a child apprentices at around age 5 and may be allowed to navigate 20 or 25 years later.

An American boy goes to school for 12 years, and then the Navy drafts him and in six months turns him into a navigator (as happened with thousands of draftees during World War II).

Which is more efficient and flexible?

Is the American system deficient because practically 0% of high school graduates can navigate an ocean liner?

I don't think so.

Harry:

It would be if we had a lot of jobs as ocean linerers available. We don't. We have jobs where you need to be able to read, comprehend, and type. Most kids can't even do that. This is a problem.

You miss my point, Harry.

We routinely take people who have had, at best, a high school education and teach them to operate computer controlled machine tools, including a 2000 watt industrial laser. It takes about 2-3 weeks to become competent and about six months to become skilled. All they need to come to us with is the ability to get to work on time, a good work ethic, the desire to learn a new skill and basic literacy, including the ability to read a ruler.

You would be surprised how many applicants we get who don't fit that profile.

If someone does fit that profile, we can teach them ourselves to do any job in the shop. No federal job training is required. If they can at least show up on time, we might have some lower skilled jobs they can do, but no amount of federal job training is going to make much of a difference, unless it goes back and does what the public schools should have done in the first place.

The public schools have no better idea than any of us what jobs are going to be hot in 10 or 20 years. Basic skills, on the other hand, will never not be important.

I once worked with a guy who got a small inheritance and used it to buy some modest beach cottages, which he then rented out.

He complained that a tenant (who, it turned out, was another newspaperman) had taken all the light bulbs when he vacated.

My boss, who managed real estate on the side, advised him to raise his rates $5 and get a better class of tenant.

That you rinse through, say, 99 incapable young people for every good one you interview does not mean that the system is turning out 99% incapables.

Maybe the figure is 10%, or 1%. Whatever it is, they account for an unusually high percentage of job applicants because, duh, they never get hired.

In my business, we never get applicants who cannot read, dress reasonably or get to work on time. We do get highly educated applicants who cannot figure a percentage, who gamble away their pay, who steal. They learned that somewhere, but obviously not in school where, according to you guys, they don't learn anything.

Sure, it's just the former are high school graduates, the latter journalism school.

No, I'm talking about high school grads. Most of our hires, about 80-90%, did not go to 4-year college, though probably half had some junior college.

Journalism schools are pretty much for numbskulls.

"highly educated applicants" are high school graduates? Man, that really is a backwater.

They staff our circulation, advertising and production departments. And, yes, they are as highly educated as the college grads who staff the newsroom (with the exception of the editor-in-chief, who never went to college).

Many of them are multi or trilingual, they travel, they know how to do stuff.

"who cannot figure a percentage, who gamble away their pay, who steal." Now I'm all confused.

Harry -- That has nothing to do with what I said.